Why Isn't Anything a Big Deal Anymore?

If you're just a spectator at all this, the way I am these days around the shebeen, you become a pure consumer of news and, as such, you have to watch your diet very carefully, lest your mind gives up and throws up because of all the substance-free nonsense you're fed. One of the most conspicuous emetics is the ass-covering that is now a conditioned reflex among our public servants. On Monday, when Sally Yates stood a Senate committee on its head simply by being a person of undeniable integrity, and as every single Republican senator—except young Ben Sasse—carried enough water for the White House to fill a swimming pool, I posted this clip on the electric Twitter machine.

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That's Senator Lowell Weicker, Republican of Connecticut, telling John Ehrlichman, a thug in the employ of the Nixon White House, that, whatever alibis Ehrlichman had concocted to excuse himself and his boss for their blatant criminality, Weicker wasn't having it any more. This was in July of 1973, a full year-plus before Nixon finally was run out of power. At this point, there was no telling whether the White House stonewall was going to hold or not. (The number who knew was pretty much limited to the guilty, and the shell-mouthed operatives of the Watergate Special Prosecutor's office.) Being an independent-minded Republican still carried a considerable political risk. Weicker did not care. He'd had enough. Why doesn't anybody have enough anymore?

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Why doesn't anybody have enough anymore?

Which brings us to the latest developments regarding James Comey, the director of the FBI and an increasingly ridiculous public figure. The other day, he drove some nails into his own palms regarding the letter he sent late in the campaign to the Congress—knowing full well, he said, that it would leak—that unquestionably queered the pitch on Hillary Rodham Clinton over the last two weeks of the campaign.

In doing so, Comey said that embattled Clinton aide Huma Abedin had forwarded hundreds of e-mails, some of which contained classified information, to her then-husband, Anthony Weiner, so that Weiner could print them out for HRC. (And, no, we're not going to get into why Anthony Weiner will live out his life as a punchline.) The Republicans, and the media, gobbled this up hungrily. New EMAILZZZZZZZZ!

The problem: Much of what Comey said about this was inaccurate. Now the FBI is trying to figure out what to do about it. FBI officials have privately acknowledged that Comey misstated what Abedin did and what the FBI investigators found. On Monday, the FBI was said to be preparing to correct the record by sending a letter to Congress later this week. But that plan now appears on hold, with the bureau undecided about what to do. ProPublica is reporting a story on the FBI's handling of the Clinton emails and raised questions with government officials last week about possible inaccuracies in Comey's statements about Abedin. It could not be learned how the mistake occurred. The FBI and Abedin declined ProPublica's requests for comment on the director's misstatements.

Wait, what?

According to two sources familiar with the matter — including one in law enforcement — Abedin forwarded only a handful of Clinton emails to her husband for printing — not the "hundreds and thousands" cited by Comey. It does not appear Abedin made "a regular practice" of doing so. Other officials said it was likely that most of the emails got onto the computer as a result of backups of her Blackberry. It was not clear how many, if any, of the forwarded emails were among the 12 "classified" emails Comey said had been found on Weiner's laptop. None of the messages carried classified markings at the time they were sent. Comey's Senate testimony about Abedin came as he offered his first public explanation for his decision to reveal the existence of the emails on Oct. 28, days ahead of the 2016 election and before FBI agents had examined them.

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Let us be plain. In all his dealings in the case of HRC and the whole private server matter, Comey's primary stance has been to be in a crouch. It is not unreasonable to assume that he had a rogue FBI office in New York that he could not control, and which had a considerable bug up its ass about the Clintons. In his Gethsemane moment over his letter to Congress, Comey pretty much admitted that his decision was influenced by his well-founded conviction that the letter would leak and that he would get subsumed by the backlash from the usual suspects. And thus, through ass-covering, history turns on a dime.

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Sean Spicer, half-man, half-marionette, spent a lot of time at his Tuesday briefing trying to paint Yates, who was appointed by George H.W. Bush at the suggestion of hilarious Clinton ur-critic Bob Barr, as an Obama administration mole. This is laughable, but this is the only political context in which career hacks like Spicer are comfortable. That is the frame of reference within which he built his career.

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(And, before the Both Sides Third Way locusts descend, find me a modern Republican equivalent of how conservative Democratic congresscritters played mumbledy-peg with the Affordable Care Act, or, for that matter, a modern Republican equivalent of Weepin' Joe Lieberman. Unless it's Young Ben Sasse, you got nothing.)

It shouldn't have been only Sasse whose questioning was on point yesterday. James Comey should have bailed on his job long ago. He should be fired now. He misled Congress. This used to be a big deal. Lowell Weicker thought so, anyway.

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